Nelson Coates

Assistant Professor, Physics

Nelson Coates is excited to be a member of the University of Portland community and to bring his passion for doing and teaching physics to the campus. Before joining the faculty at UP, Nelson taught and established a research program as an assistant professor of physics at California State University – Maritime. His research focuses on controlling charge and energy transport in solution-processed materials to make better thermoelectrics, supercapacitors, radiation detectors, and solar cells. Although Nelson grew up in Portland, he left the Pacific Northwest to pursue a bachelor’s degree from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. This was followed by a move to UC Santa Barbara to pursue a Ph.D., studying polymer solar cells with Alan Heeger. After receiving his Ph.D., Nelson completed a postdoctoral fellowship studying organic-inorganic thermoelectric materials at UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory with Rachel Segalman and Jeffrey Urban. Nelson is delighted to be back in Portland and is looking forward to both reconnecting with the city, and spending time in the nearby forests, mountains, and other natural environs.